Sunday, October 19, 2008

Take a look around the Google Search Results page, and you'll start to notice some new items Google has been adding to the page.

One of these new features is a notation if Google is customizing your search results - giving you different search results than anyone else.

A message will appear in the top-right corner of the search results page, with a link to a page with more details about how and why Google personalized your search.

As long as you are logged into your Google account, Google will generally give you unique results based on geographic location, another recent search you performed, or items from your Web History.

Google Personalized Search gives your own unique search results only when you are logged into your Google account. Previously, you never knew when you were getting customized results since it was all done behind the scenes. Now that has changed.

Make sure you are logged into your Google account while Google searching so that Google can to learn how you search. Pretty soon Google will begin to give you more relevant and useful search results.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

My friend, Lorine McGinnisSchulze, of the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog tagged me to participate in a Fun Friday post of getting to know all about me.

I am supposed to list 25 things you may or may not know about me - arranging them in 5 topic groups of 5 each. 5 jobs I've held, 5 places I've lived, 5 snacks I enjoy, 5 things I doing 10 years ago, and 5 items on today's to-do list. And then send this along to 5 bloggers who have not already received this meme. I've led a pretty ordinary life so this probably sound pretty darn boring.

Ten years ago I:

* Enjoyed the visit to see our newborn first grandchild.

* Visited Ireland and Northern Ireland to see my husband's and my Irish ancestral hometowns. We felt very brave to visit Belfast in Northern Ireland in spite of "the troubles" and found it to be a wonderful and beautiful place.

* Had severely broken a bone in my foot which wouldn't heal and was ordered not to walk for 3 months. So I used the time to sit (with foot elevated) in front of my home computer teaching myself to create webpages.

Five places I have lived:

* Philadelphia, Pennsylvania* Broomall, Pennsylvania* Claymont, Delaware (where Joe Biden went to high school - see below**)* Wilmington, Delaware* Hendersonville, Tennessee (lived near a lot of Country Music stars)

Five jobs I have had:

* Door to Door Telephone Book Delivery Person* Sales Clerk in a Jewish bakery (And I'm not Jewish!)* Computer Programmer in the days when the programs were punched onto cards* Library Assistant

Five snacks I enjoy:

* Chocolate* Chocolate* Chocolate* Chocolate* Chocolate

Five things on today's To-Do List

* Vote by Absentee Ballot* Pull weeds* Shop at a store going out of business* Respond to e-mails* Check out the new Footnote Civil War pension records

I'm supposed to pass this on to 5 other genea-bloggers but I am still looking for someone who has not been tagged yet. If you would like to be tagged, let me know.

** When I heard Joe Biden introduce his mother during his VP acceptance speech, Catherine Eugenie Finnegan, I thought to myself, "We have a Finnegan in our family tree. I wonder if there is a connection". After all, we are both from PA and DE. Well, it turns out there is. Now don't laugh, but my first cousin three times removed married Joe Biden's second cousin twice removed.